Tata Nano, $2,500 car from India
Ratan Tata unveiled the Nano at the Delhi Auto Expo on January 10, 2008. The Tata Nano is the $2,500 car that has been designed and built in India at the hands of more than 500 people from around the world. I was reading the english Times Online write up about the Nano and enjoyed all the comments left on the article. One of them was particularly interesting to me as it captured my opinion of this announcement almost perfectly.
“$2500 cars already exist, they are called “used cars”. Option A, new tin can with 33hp, Option B 5-8 year old real car, like a Carolla or Civic or Sentra. Which will last longer, be safer, and look better?
Maybe one positive of this car will be that it will drive used car prices down.”
~Mike S, Dallas
The idea of a car costing only $2,500 is not new. Plenty of depreciated vehicles fall into this price range, and lots of those used vehicles are not aluminum bubbles that top out at 65mph. I do disagree with Mike from Dallas that this car will drive used car prices down, and a few other ideas come to mind when I think about how the Tata Nano might impact the American market.
- it will not
- the Nano is not coming to America
- it is not allowed to come to America because of environmental and safety requirements
- the Nano is not of higher quality than $2,500 used cars in America
- driving in India is safer than driving in America†
- why do all highly efficient vehicles look like cartoon bubble cars
†Roughly 85,000 people are killed each year in India as the result of a car crash, and less than 50,000 killed similarly in America. The population of India is 3.75 times that of the US, but the number of people killed in car crashes is only about 2 times that in the US.
Brand new car for $2500… is good deal in india… as a used 94 Corolla is around 4000-4500… also the car crash numbers are very high compared to number of vehicles on the road… I read online that there are only 13mil private cars in India… compared to US… where 17mln cars a sold every year.
Thanks for your thoughts, Umer. I don’t doubt that crash numbers are high when compared with the number of vehicles on the road. I think the issue there is with the roads and not the cars–little traffic infrastructure will yield lots of accidents.
This car is not a good thing for India. More traffic congestion, more air pollution, more parking problems, more crowded court schedules from cases involving accidents and damage… demands for greater infrastructure - higher taxes… loss of foreign exchange capital to the need for increased petroleum…
And the idea that Indian roads are safer than American roads is silly. America has only 1/3rd the number of people, but more than ten times as many cars as India, probably closer to 15 to 20 times as many cars. In many states of the US there are more vehicles than there are adults to drive them. And they are driven much longer distances at higher speeds. The rational comparison would be to compare the number of accidents per vehicle mile driven… in which case the accident rate and/or death rates for automobiles in India is MANY times the rate in the USA.
I am not irrational. The numbers I mentioned here are few years old, granted, but I think the life and death comparison is fair. We can disagree.
it is good for india.india is in the way of devloping.the world’s chipest car was made in india.